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Union anger at threatened BBC suspensions

19/07/2007

Trade union leaders have reacted angrily after the BBC announced that some programme editors would be suspended over the fresh scandal concerning phone-in competitions run by the broadcaster.

BBC director general Mark Thompson made the warning yesterday after announcing the suspension of all phone-in contests run by the corporation, which is facing fresh claims that fake winners were selected by several programmes.

Evidence of the latest problems regarding BBC phone-in competitions emerged during a meeting between Mr Thompson and members of the BBC Trust, which represents TV licence payers.

Following the meeting the BBC chief confirmed in a statement that in some cases editors would be "asked to stand back from their duties" pending reviews to determine why it had taken so long for the incidents to be come to light.

However broadcasting union Bectu claims that BBC bosses are wrongly attempting to shift blame for the problem onto junior staff and insist that the corporation's management are responsible for the lowering of standards as a result of budget cuts.

"The responsibility for this lies at the top, not with the over-worked, under-resourced production staff who are under severe pressure to have their contracts renewed," said Helen Ryan, supervisory official for Bectu's BBC division.

"It is not acceptable to us that there will now be retrospective penalties on this matter that management have failed to police properly," she added.

Mr Thompson stressed yesterday that nothing mattered to the broadcaster more than "trust and fair dealing" with its audiences after the latest problems with the BBC's phone-in competitions emerged.

In what the Guardian dubbed as 'black Wednesday' for the BBC, Mr Thompson also announced an independent inquiry into the row over a misleading trailer of a documentary featuring the Queen.

Today's newspapers suggest that the scandal and the furore over the royal documentary has cast doubt on the integrity of the public service broadcaster and prompted the biggest crisis facing the BBC since the Hutton inquiry.

All BBC phone-in competitions and online contests were suspended at midnight after it emerged that the broadcaster had uncovered six new instances of production staff faking the results of such contests, either by passing themselves off as genuine viewers or listeners, or by inventing fictitious winners.

Programmes involved include this year's Comic Relief and last year's Children in Need.

The suspension of competitions and announcement of new training for new staff came on the same day media regulator Ofcom reported that there had been a "systematic failure" in the way various TV channels had run premium rate phone services.

Last week the regulator fined the BBC £50,000 after it emerged that children's programme Blue Peter has asked a studio guest to pose as a phone-in competition winner due to a technical glitch last November.

The chairman of parliament's culture, media and sport select committee last night claimed that the TV phone-in breaches were worse because they had been committed by a public service broadcaster.

Conservative MP John Whittingdale told Channel 4 News that the fact the BBC received £3.5 billion of public money should make it a "standard bearer for truth and honesty".

"That's why these breaches revealed today are more serious because it's the BBC that's committed them rather than other broadcasters," he explained.

However ITV executive chairman Michael Grade, himself a former BBC chief, told the programme that the BBC Trust had "clearly got a grip" of the situation.

"When something of this nature happens it's how you manage it, how you expose it, how transparent you are, how willing and how fast you are with disclosure, which restores trust," he stressed.

Both Mr Grade and the BBC's deputy director general will explain the situation to the House of Commons' culture select committee next Tuesday, BBC Online reports.

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